J.D. Salinger Dead At 91

[+ Lucky]

Holden Caulfield has outlived his creator as the NY Times is reporting that the author J. D. Salinger has died at the age of 91.

[AdamSmith]

Not to be callous. Well, OK, maybe. Anyway, one thinks of what Alice Roosevelt Longworth cracked, when told that Coolidge was dead:

 

"How could they tell?"

[+ Lucky]

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I died and what my lousy old age was like, and how my readers were occupied and all after they had read me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

[AdamSmith]

ROFL

 

You could rewrite the whole thing in this vein!

 

Hmmm...

[+ g56whiz]

Louis Auchincloss

 

And the pater familias to generations of wasps as well.

[Luv2play]

J D Salinger was, in my opinion, one of the most over-rated writers of the 20th century. He wrote one, ONE, book that was charming but little else. I tried reading a couple of his other efforts, Franny and Zooie and Raise High the Roofbeams. They were embarrassingly bad. No wonder he gave up and retired from public life.

 

I think with Catcher in the Rye, he tapped into a feeling of angst amongst young people of the 1950's and early 1960's, which is when I read the book. But he proved incapable of growing from there.

 

Louis Auchincloss(sp?) is a writer that I enjoy. I am in the middle of one of his books, which I can't name since it is at the cottage and I will only get back to it in February. He wrote over 50 books and was related by marriage to Jackie Kennedy, I believe.

[+ Charlie]

I believe that Jackie was technically Louis's step-sister (her mother married his father, after both Jackie and Louis were adults).

[AdamSmith]

charming but little else

Exquisitely said.

 

It occurs that maybe Holden, or rather J.D., simply was not using the right drugs. With a better choice there, we could have had another Naked Lunch.

 

Franny and Zooie and Raise High the Roofbeams. They were embarrassingly bad.

 

Thank you! Those 2 books seemed to infest every college dorm room. I would pick them up and try, but...

[+ purplekow]

Franny and Zooey seemed to me the natural follow up after reading Catcher in the Rye. I read it at a time in my life when I did not leave a book half read. Perhaps it shaped my new policy, grab my attention and imagination by page 30 or lose me forever.

[Guest alanm]

I hope that Salinger's latter writing will now be published.

 

"Hapsworth 16, 1924" took up an entire issue of the New York in 1965, and that was it. I remember reading that novella over and over, till my copy of the magazine gave out.

 

I barely got through "The Catcher in the Rye" once. But, "Franny and Zooey" and "Raise High the Roof Beams" are gems. Salinger would have been highly amused that he and Auchincloss died on almost the same day.

[+ Lucky]

Was Holden Caulfield gay? There is a school of thought that he was, or was meant to be, since he is a fictional character:

 

http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000029/holden-caulfield-is-gayedited